€58 million in Japan NatRef subsidies confirmed for FY2019

A €58 million budget for NatRef installation subsidies in Japan for FY2019 has been confirmed by Japan’s Ministry of Environment.

Japanese Ministry of Environment logo.

Today (21 December), the Japanese Ministry of the Environment confirmed it has set the budget for natural refrigerant subsidies in Japan at ¥7.4 billion (€58 million) for the 2019 Financial Year (FY2019).

The natural refrigerant subsidy scheme is a five-year project, beginning in 2018 and ending in 2022. The targeted sectors remain the same as last year: food retail, food manufacturing, and cold stores.

With the amount of natural refrigerant subsidies now confirmed, the opportunity for domestic and international suppliers of CO2, NH3 and hydrocarbon solutions will again be a hot topic to discuss at ATMOsphere Japan on 12 February 2019.

About Japan’s natural refrigerant subsidy scheme

Since 2014, the subsidies have been a major driver of growth for natural refrigerants and has led to an increase in the number of CO2 transcritical stores in Japan, as well as NH3/CO2 cold store facilities.

The stated goal of the subsidy is to encourage the “shift to natural refrigerants […] and to widely promote the use of energy-efficient equipment," Japan’s Ministry of the Environment states.

It adds that the subsidy aims to “contribute to driving down the cost of natural refrigerant equipment to achieve cost parity with conventional f-gas equipment, and to accelerate the spread of the technology."